


before you get any ideas (i do care)

by yellowteapots



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Wells Jaha Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:50:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowteapots/pseuds/yellowteapots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy is about to say something, just to cut through the awkwardness, when Wells finally clears his throat and looks Bellamy in the eye.<br/>“Before you get any ideas,” he pauses, gesturing to Clarke - who's chatting away to Monty whilst Finn tries to vie for her attention – with a wistful look in his eye, “she's mine...or she was, at least.”<br/>Bellamy snorts, running a hand through the tangle of curls falling in front of his eyes. “Before you get any ideas, Jaha, I don't care.” He glances back over the Clarke as Finn hands her an orange blossom and a smile tugs at her cheeks. “Besides, I don't think it's me you need to worry about.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	before you get any ideas (i do care)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marauders_groupie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/gifts).



> To the amazing Lana, I hope you have had a wonderful birthday full of all the treats you deserve. I hope you're having a blast on your travels! This is by no means perfect but I wanted to do something for you on your birthday :)
> 
> \- Also this is based on a gifset I saw on tumblr where the conversation Clarke and Ocatvia have over Finn in pilot is used by Wells and Bellamy instead.

They've just set foot on earth for the first time when it gets brought up for the first time.

They're making good progress through the trees when Bellamy finds himself bringing up the rear or the group, he can't help but keep checking over his shoulder to make sure Octavia hasn't followed them into the forest. He hopes he made the right decision by leaving Miller in charge of the group and if he's anything like his father who was in charge of Bellamy's guard training on the Ark then Bellamy has nothing to worry about. It won't stop him from worrying, of course, but at least he's aware that he's being irrational.

He doesn't know what possessed him to follow the Griffin girl, Jaha's son and a few of the stoner kids from Agro into the trees but he supposes it'll be worth it if he can find food for his sister. It's his fault she's in this damn mess in the first place and he'll be damned if he lets the prince and princess of the Ark take better care of his sister than he can.

The trees are thinning back out again when Wells starts to hang back and then eventually falls into step with Bellamy. He's quiet for a while, staring at his boots and playing with the seam of his jacket with one of his hands, and Bellamy can feel that the other boy wants to say something.

Bellamy is about to say something, just to cut through the awkwardness, when Wells finally clears his throat and looks Bellamy in the eye.

“Before you get any ideas,” he pauses, gesturing to Clarke - who's chatting away to Monty whilst Finn tries to vie for her attention – with a wistful look in his eye, “she's mine...or she was, at least.”

Bellamy snorts, running a hand through the tangle of curls falling in front of his eyes. “Before you get any ideas, Jaha, I don't care.” He glances back over the Clarke as Finn hands her an orange blossom and a smile tugs at her cheeks. “Besides, I don't think it's me you need to worry about.”

Wells' eyes follow Bellamy's gaze and then he's calling after the princess, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to catch up with her.

And it's not even a lie, not then anyway. It's almost laughable that Wells would think Bellamy was interested in Clarke. They've been on Earth less than a day – most of that time trying to pry their way out of the dropship and stop fighting for long enough to make some sort of shelter – he's barely had time to collect his thoughts, let alone time to start putting the moves on Clarke. Not that he would, of course, they're much too different.

Besides, he doesn't have time for girls – he has O to think about.

That's what he thinks right up until he catches up with the rest of the group, just as Clarke is stripping off her trousers and prepares herself to wade out into the stream in their way.

He knows he should look away, a better man would have. But then, Bellamy Blake is not, and will never be, the better man – not after what he did to get himself down here.

-

Bellamy catches hold of her arm, a reflex, yet he's still called a hero.

She'd managed to persuade him to come along with herself and Monty on a foraging mission to get some medical supplies – they'd both aced Earth Skills back on the Ark so he had no idea why she'd wanted him to tag along.

So he decides it's better to hang back than to get in the way, scouting through the forest whilst the other two set to work gathering different plants and marking the locations on a crudely drawn map.

Once he's happy the area is clear of any wild animals, he makes his way back over to the clearing his friends are still working in.

“What's that?”

Clarke looks up, eyebrows furrowed like she didn't catch what he'd said. “Huh?”

He tilts his head towards the cluster of flowers she's got gripped in her palm. They look like daisies only completely yellow and they're positively glowing in the light that's filtering down between the trees. “What are the flowers for Princess?”

She frowns at the nickname but doesn't snap like she used to. “Tansies. They help with joint pains and headaches – that sort of thing.”

“They also make a damn good insect repellent.” Monty adds, swatting a fly away from his arm.

“And these?”

He's just about to reach out and grab a handful of the green leaves when Clarke slaps his hand away. He recoils instantly, scowling at her.

“What the hell was that for? I was only trying to help?”

She shrugs. “It's poison sumac. Trust me when I say that you don't want to touch it.”

“Oh.” he stammers. “Thanks, I guess.”

If she thinks he's being ungrateful then she doesn't say anything. She just laughs and shoves her handful of tansies in her pack.

They spend a little more time – it's hard to say exactly how long without being back at camp – searching for the list of plants she's come up with before most of them are crossed off. There's only a couple left and Clarke's fairly certain they'll grow closer to the dropship so they decide to call it a day and head home.

The forest looks different on the way back, although Clarke is insistent that they're going in the right direction. Some of the trees look different but Bellamy is the first to admit that he'd never paid all that much attention to any of his Earth Skills classes, much to his teachers chagrin, but there didn't seem to be much point when you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life up in space.

They press on further, Monty muttering away to himself about finishing the radios when they get back to camp, and Clarke's beginning to look less confident that she's taking them in the right direction.

“I'm pretty sure you've gotten us lost, Clarke.” he snarks when she pauses in the middle of an overgrown trail.

She whirls round on him and if he didn't know better he'd think that he could see the slightest twinge of fear in her eyes. “We are _not_ lost, Bellamy, we've just taken a different route home that's all.”

“Sure we have.” And if she wasn't agitated before then the sardonic raise of his eyebrow seems enough to push her over the edge.

“Well if you think you can do a better job then be my guest.” she frowns taking a defiant step backwards.

All at once, it's like the earth falls from underneath her feet and she's falling, her gasp of shock ringing in his ears. His hand flies out and catches her forearm before he even has time to think, a fraction too late and she would have slipped through his grasp and been impaled on the spikes below.

Monty is next to him, then, kneeling down and grabbing at her other hand and the pair of them manage to pull her back up to safety.

Once Clarke has had a chance to catch her breath, he hands her his flask of water. She takes a greedy gulp and then uses her sleeve to wipe at her mouth. “Thanks, Bellamy. You're my hero.” she adds with a goofy grin.

His cheeks heat up and he's lost for words. “It's, uh, what anyone would have done.”

“But it wasn't anyone, Bell, it was you.”

Clarke's the first person, beside his sister, to call him that since they've been on the group and it leaves him stunned. He knows it's irrational but it sends a wave of affection for her straight through him and he can't help the smile that tugs on his lips. He's about to choke out some kind of reply, aware he's probably gone too long without saying anything, when Monty slaps him on the back and tells them they need to get moving before it gets any darker.

For days he walks around the camp and people are congratulating him and calling him a hero, even Wells raises a glass towards him when he sees him around the camp fire. Whatever Wells'd been hinting at the day he warned him off Clarke was clearly over if the way he was hanging off Raven's every word was any indicator.

He doesn't deserve it – he didn't even have time to process what was happening he'd just acted on impulse – he knows he doesn't, but when he sees Clarke telling the story again he feels a surge of pride.

Maybe he does care about what happens to her after all.

-

He's just got back from a hunting trip, Harper and Monroe on his heels and Miller following behind, gun trained on the tree line, when Wells' words come back to him again.

He knows that he's not exactly being subtle. He's sure Miller had clocked the way he'd tripped over his words when he'd shown Clarke how to use the guns they'd found in the bunker, almost positive that Monty has caught his smiling in her direction once to often to be considered normal and he knows for sure that his sister is on to him.

Jasper closes the gate behind them and watches from his post as Bellamy dumps the deer carcass next to the makeshift smoke house – he'll either skin it in the morning or he'll find Murphy and get him to do it since the other boy doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. He shucks off his gun, propping it next to the deer, and them makes his way over to where his sister is sitting almost cross legged one of the logs around the fire pit.

Before he can sit down and Octavia can hand him some of the meat she'd starting cooking before he left he sees a blond blur darting towards him and he feels himself being knocked backwards. He manages to stop himself before falling flat on his ass but that doesn't stop Monroe heckling him or Raven to start laughing from her seat hear the fire.

He only has moments to wrap his arms around her and feel the press of her up against him before she's pulling back. He can see Finn over her shoulder and the he doesn't look thrilled at the scene playing out in front of him.

“What took you so long?” Clarke scolds, brow furrowed.

“Turns out there was another bunker just south of here so we stopped to check it out.” he smiles sheepishly, knowing that she was probably worried the moment she realised they were late. “I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry? What could have been so important -” She stops abruptly when he produces a few pencils from the pocket of his battered guard jacket, a couple of different colours and all in various sizes, and places them into her palm. The look on her face is nothing he's ever seen there before.

“Like them?”

Clarke nods, her cheeks a light shade of pink. She seems to hesitate for just a second before she rocks forward on her toes and places a quick kiss to his cheek, almost dangerously near his lips, and then hurries off back towards the med bay.

He knows his jaw is hanging open and he can still feel the way his heart is beating just a little too quickly when he slumps down on a log next to his sister.

“Now, that's something I thought I'd never see.” Octavia snarks, eyebrow creeping up towards her hairline.

“I have no idea what you're talking about O.” he sighs, knowing all to well what his sister is talking about. “Eat your damn panther before it goes cold.” he grumbles, draining the last of the water from his mug.

-

“ _You care about her.” Wells murmurs, startling him. He'd been leant against the watch tower for the past three hours, eyes scanning the tree line, waiting for one of the other guards to relieve him, and hadn't heard the other boy approaching._

 _“I care about all of them_.” Bellamy grumbles. He can't help but hope it's too dark for Wells to see the look of hesitation he's sure just flickered on his face.

Wells glances over Bellamy's shoulder and Bellamy turns as well. Clarke is sat opposite Jasper, cards piled between them, each of them with a smile on their faces. and a cup of moonshine in their hands. The fires crackling before them, the orange glow lighting half her face whilst a shadow is cast on the other. He thinks it's a near perfect contradiction. “Yet you worry about her more.”

Bellamy shakes his head, feels his eyebrows creasing. “No more than I do about Octavia.”

It worries him how true that is. He's never cared about someone as much as he's cared about Octavia before in his life – except maybe his mum but that was complicated – and, honestly, the whole prospect kind of terrifies him.

It doesn't look like Wells believes him but the other boy chooses not to push the subject further, shrugging and then wandering back over towards Raven's makeshift workshop.

For the last half hour of his shift Bellamy keeps catching himself looking over at Clarke, her hair a golden halo in the light. There's a rouge tint to her cheeks from the moonshine that he can see even from the wall and it's nice to see her looking so relaxed. In the weeks they've been on the ground she's gone from a princess to a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, running around trying to patch up the kids and making sure everyone's had enough to eat.

“You know,” Bellamy jumps at his friends voice, his cheeks heating up because he knows that he's been caught out. “You'll probably find guard duty lot easier if you're actually looking in the direction you're meant to be watching over.” Miller laughs, a rare but loud sound, at the look on Bellamy's face.“Much happened?” he adds.

“Uh, no...it's been, uh, quiet.” he stammers, kicking himself for acting like such a child. “Did you and Monty manage to finish off those, er, radios?”

At least he knows his jibe has had to desired effect when Miller clears his throat a bit too forcefully after a sip of water. “Uh, yeah. He did all of the work though, I just kind of gave moral support and made sure he ate and stuff.” Miller pauses, pulling his beanie over his ears. “Speaking of, go get yourself something to eat, man, before there's nothing left.”

Bellamy nods, handing his gun over.

He's made it halfway to the mess hall when he feels a tap on his shoulder. So he turns and, of course, she's standing there beaming up at him the beat up pack of cards in her hand and a twinkle in her eye.

“I've been waiting for you to come off duty.” she smiles and he can't deny the warm feeling that blossoms inside him whenever she says something like this or, if he's honest, even looks in his direction. “Want to play? I've kicked Jasper's ass too many times and now he's refusing to play. He thinks I'm cheating.” she pouts, and he wonders how much moonshine she's actually had.

He nods because he can't deny her anything. “Wait for me by the fire, okay? I just need to get something to eat.”

By the time he comes back, plate of meat and a few types of nut in his hand, he finds her slumped against one of the chairs they'd dragged out of the dropship. She's snoring lightly and her head is lolling to the side in a way that can't be comfortable.

He sighs, shoving his plate on the nearest surface and then scoops her up before carrying her back to her tent and pulling her blankets up around her. He takes a minute to make sure she's still asleep before he ducks back out of her tent, once last glance back at her before he's enveloped by the night.

So much for _I don't care_.

-

He knows he's screwed when the leaves start to turn orange and they begin to crunch underneath his boots.

The scouts had been sent to meet them when the dew was still pooling in the basin of the leave and fog hung in the air, settling amongst the trees. They'd come with the chill of the morning, shrouded in the mist and wearing it like a cloak. Each on a horse, swords strapped to their backs and looks of steely determination etched across their painted faces.

Miller pulls open the gates and Octavia rushes over to pet the horses as soon as the riders dismount, jumping down from the saddle with a surprising amount of grace.

Clarke's off sorting through the medical supplies the grounders have brought to them when it starts. He can see her rifling through an assortment of different plants, of green blues and reds, and pulling out viles in a variety of different sizes. He feels a little out of place watching the rest of the kids mingling amongst the grounders. They're all clad in furs and torn leather falling from their heavy boots and it's a stark contrast to the combats and bomber jackets that they landed in.

Bellamy's much too busy watching his sister flirting with some tall, heavily tattooed man – there would have been a time when he would have barged over there and dragged his sister away but if earth's taught him anything it's that his sister is a hell of a lot more capable than people give her credit for – to even notice the girl walking over to him.

He's startled when the girl clears her throat next to him and he tears his eyes away from Octavia to look at her. The girl has her hair in a set of intricate braids, some feathers tucked into the plaits, and she has a series of white patterns splattered across her neck and arms. Her eyes are harsh, not quite feral yet still somehow animalistic, but they seem to soften when he smiles at her.

“I am Echo.” she smiles and it's somewhat predatory. He suddenly has the urge to take a step back and put some distance between them but he doesn't, he knows they can't afford to offend their guests. “Kom Azgeda, and you are?”

“Uh, Bellamy. My name's Bellamy.” He rubs his hand across the base of his neck, nervous. It's his tell and anyone who knows him is knows it too. Echo, though, isn't and seems to take it as an indication to move further into his space.

He glances up and can see Clarke over the girls shoulder. She's paused midway through a box, a blueish green vile held with a vice-like in her right hand. There's an unreadable expression tugging at her eyebrows, knitting them together, and it looks like a storm is brewing in her eyes.

“ _Belomi_ ,” Echo says as if she's trying it out on her tongue. She seems strong, more so than some of the other grounders they've come across since they've been on the ground, and more than capable of getting what she wants. In every way she's his usual type and yet.

And _yet_.

“I've heard about you, Bellamy of the sky people, and I liked what I heard. And now I see you... I like you even more.”

He catches Clarke's eye and she looks positively livid. She closer than before, all supplies left abandoned, watching them. Her jaw is locked and when Monty tries to ask her something she dismisses him quickly. The younger boy quickly hurries away and Clarke turns her attention back towards Bellamy.

“Thanks, I guess?” he offers with a small shrug.

“Am I keeping you from something?” she asks, quirking a sharp eyebrow. Her hand comes up and rests against his elbow. “Someone?”

“No. I – before, uh...before you get any ideas...” Bellamy hedges, taking a tentative step back.

The girl steps forward to close the gap he'd made between them and his eyes, once again, dart over her shoulder and settle themselves on Clarke. She has a frown etched across her face and her shoulders are set as she storms over towards him. She looks mad. He'd be lying if he said this wasn't doing it for him.

Once she reaches him her frown morphs into a brilliant smile, forgotten.“Everything okay?”she purrs, slipping an arm around his waist and tucking herself into his side.

It isn't unusual for them to touch like this now but he doesn't think he'll ever get over it. Get over the casual affection she so often throws in his direction. He'd sling an arm over her shoulder if it was cold out, maybe toss his jacket over to her, or she'd press their legs together when they were sitting by the fire. This felt different, though.

The grounder girl, Echo, flicks her gaze over to Clarke giving her a once over. She looks confused and then Clarke tilts up on her toes and presses a quick kiss against the underside of his jaw.

To her credit, Echo flushes a little underneath the white swirls on her cheeks and stutters out an apology. “I'm sorry. I, uh, didn't realise you two were involved.” She makes her excuses before making her way back over to her horse.

It takes Bellamy a second to process what's happening. The spot where Clarke's lips had been still burning from her touch and he can feel his heart beating a little too quickly in his chest. If it wasn't for the excited chatter all around them then he'd be sure that Clarke could hear it.

“What the hell was that?” he manages to get out. She's still leaning into him and it's distracting.

She shrugs clearly trying to play it off but her voice gives her away. “You looked uncomfortable so I thought I'd come rescue you.”

“Rescue me?” he chokes when she slides her hand up his stomach. He glances over and can see Echo watching them from her horse. “I can handle myself Clarke.”

“I know.” she murmurs but she doesn't pull away, just shifts so she's in front of him. A strand of her hair has come loose and it falls over her eye.

“Then why?”

Clarke doesn't answer at first but he follows her eyes as they search his face but he can't make out what she's looking for. She glances between his eyes, lips, then eyes again. He feels his cheeks heating up under her scrutiny.

She still doesn't move but her eyes are just as intense as ever and he thinks about pulling away. He probably should move, right? “Clarke, you good?”

He's just about to make his excuses when her arms snake up and her hands find purchase in his hair. “I, uh – Bell?” He nods and then she's tipping forward on her toes, pressing her lips against his. Her lips are cold, chapped but still his skin sparks under her touch.

Before he can get too lost in the kiss he pulls back. “This better not be for show or so help me.” he murmurs, pressing a light kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Before she or anyone else get any ideas, Blake, you're mine.” Clarke breathes, lips close enough that he can still taste her.

He's about to make some sort of snarky comment, he can feel it about to roll of his tongue, but he never gets the chance. He can't bring himself to care about anything else but the feel of Clarke's lips moving against his. “Before you get any ideas, I know.”

 


End file.
